


How Is Your Heart

by cutloosemcgoose



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, Coercion, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Implied Violence, Incest, M/M, Manipulation, Racist Language, Rough Sex, Slut Shaming, Underage Sex, dubcon, offscreen death, onscreen death, preslash, violence during a sexual encounter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:18:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutloosemcgoose/pseuds/cutloosemcgoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stiles leaves with the alphas.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Is Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Asking for it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/748160) by [Helenish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helenish/pseuds/Helenish). 



> This story was inspired by Helenish’s amazing ["Asking For It"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/748160) as well as all her Stiles/Deucalion tumblr fics. As such, it’s dedicated to her. 
> 
> Title from Charles Bukowski’s [poem](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/9392/how-is-your-heart/) of the same name.
> 
> This story begins senior year of high school. Once again, I’ve written what basically amounts to Derek/Stiles preslash, so there’s very little of that ship in here. I swear, the next thing I write will involve more than just kissing.
> 
> Warnings: underage (Stiles is seventeen), dubious consent for all the sex (Stiles/Deucalion, Stiles/Ethan/Aiden, Stiles/Kali off-screen); incest; implied violence (against Erica and Boyd); violence during a sexual encounter (Stiles/Deucalion); rough sex; coercive/manipulative behavior to entice someone into leaving town with another character (Deucalion towards Stiles); racist language; ableist language; slut shaming; onscreen death; off-screen death. Stiles makes the choice to have sex with all the above-named characters, but he’s not in a good headspace for most of this story. If you need or want any additional warnings or explanations, please do not hesitate to contact me.

_to awaken in a cheap room_  
_in a strange city and_  
_pull up the shade-_  
_this was the craziest kind of_  
_contentment_

_and to walk across the floor_  
_to an old dresser with a_  
_cracked mirror-_  
_see myself, ugly,_  
_grinning at it all._  
_what matters most is_  
_how well you_  
_walk through the_  
_fire._  
_-Charles Bukowski, How Is Your Heart_

 

Stiles spends senior year fucking his way through the alpha pack, carelessly, ruthlessly. He starts with the twins, takes a brief detour through Kali, and then spends the rest of the year being well and truly used by Deucalion. It’s—a change, to stop worrying about everyone else for once and just think about himself, his own uncomplicated pleasure. He doesn’t have to think—about his dad, about Scott, Lydia, school, werewolves, kanimas, Erica and Boyd still missing, presumed dead. He goes to school and goes to lacrosse, stops by the house after—it’s an old Victorian on the outskirts of town, run-down but not decrepit yet, full of winding staircases, big and drafty rooms, a sagging back porch with rain-warped planks of wood. He stays until it’s late, after dark, comes home and tells his father that he was at Scott’s, Allison’s, late at school working on labs with Danny. His father doesn’t question it—he hasn’t been found at any more crime scenes, the brutal murders and animal attacks have stopped, things are back to normal.

The twins take turns fucking him, one after the other, for hours at a time. They share a room—two queen-sized beds—but they always stay on one, Ethan’s or Aiden’s, he doesn’t know whose. It’s too close, too tight, and Stiles almost has a panic attack, the first time, feels suffocated between the two bodies, pinned down to the bed by supernatural strength that won’t let him move. 

“Relax,” Ethan had said against his throat. Stiles had stilled, realizing just how close those fangs were to his pulse point. His heart rate ratcheted up, through the roof, and Aiden had laughed, left arm a vise across his chest. “We always sleep like this, it’s better.”

Stiles couldn’t move, didn’t want to, he realized after a long time of staring at the ceiling. They could have—bitten him, turned him at any time, but they hadn’t. He wasn’t good enough to be a werewolf, especially not in the alpha pack, which was like the Avengers compared to Derek’s sad-sack attempts, but he was good enough to fuck, to keep around. That was something.

They liked to tie him up, take turns fucking his mouth or his ass, keep him still so that he couldn’t move, couldn’t get away. They didn’t need the ropes or handcuffs, but this way they could take their time with him, take breaks, step back and leave him hard and aching, begging, while they laughed, told him to try harder, do better if he wanted to come. They were only seventeen, like Stiles, but they could last longer—Stiles didn’t know if it was a werewolf thing, if they all had incredible stamina, or if he was just too new at this, always feeling on the knife’s edge of an orgasm when Ethan would run his hand up Stiles’ thigh under the dinner table, when Aiden would wrap a hand around his throat and jack him off in time. 

Stiles liked it, hated himself for it, got angry at himself for his hatred; he could—like what he liked, he didn’t have to feel ashamed at how good it felt to have someone fucking his ass, bent over his back, calling him a slut, saying, “you like it, don’t you, you love being fucked like this, like the bitch that you are.” He came, better and harder than he ever had before, on his own.

Derek had smelled it on him, the very first week. “Stiles,” he’d said and then his eyes had widened, nostrils flaring as he took in a breath, got a whiff—sweat and blood and come, still stuck to his stomach, his legs. Stiles hadn’t showered before showing up, had wanted to—flaunt it, a big ‘fuck you’ to Derek and Isaac and even Scott, thinking that he couldn’t be involved, that he couldn’t handle it. He was handling it, with both hands, his mouth, his body—he didn’t need to be protected.

Derek was in face before he could say anything, pressing Stiles against the wall. “Who—which one—are you hurt?” he ground out, eyes on Stiles’ face, his arms, maybe seeing the bruises, feeling how his legs were trembling, muscles weak because he’d been tied up, rope around his wrists and looped through a hook in the ceiling, forced to balance on his toes for hours, scrabbling from purchase as they took him from both sides. 

“No,” Stiles said, feeling the weight of Derek’s gaze, his hands. “I’m great, actually.”

Derek had backed off then, heard the sneer in his voice, maybe, or just realized that Stiles wouldn’t have made it out alive if it hadn’t been—consensual. He took a step back, still staring at Stiles. “Are you—did they offer you something, if you worked with them?”

“Is that your way of asking if I fucked them to save Scott? Or maybe you?”

“Did you?” Derek asked, voice very steady.

“They don’t want anything from you,” Stiles said. “They’re looking for something in Beacon Hills and if you stay out of their way, everything will be fine.”

Derek’s mouth twisted. “Did they tell you that?” 

“The twins did,” Stiles said. “The two I fucked,” he clarified, feeling high, reckless. “They’re not even planning a formal meeting. Seriously, just make yourself scarce for a few weeks and you’ll be fine.”

“And you believed them?”

Stiles shrugged. “No reason to lie to me, I’m not the messenger.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Apparently nothing,” Stiles said, and walked away.  
***  
Stiles leaves with the alphas.

He graduates with honors—Lydia is valedictorian, naturally—and defers admission to Berkeley for a year. He tells his dad he’s going to travel the country for a year, work, see the world a little. The Sheriff doesn’t say anything—he can’t, really. The last two years have shown him that Stiles can’t be controlled. He’s a wild thing, now.

Stiles doesn’t tell anyone else where he’s going. His world has narrowed, lately, to just Deucalion and his pack. His dad is on the fringes, too. Scott has been almost completely absent, the last year, since Stiles first—took up with the alphas. From what Stiles has seen, around school, Scott is back together with Allison and they’ve formed a little wolf pack of three with Isaac. 

He goes because Deucalion says, “you’re part of my pack now. You can go anywhere you want and you won’t be questioned.” He grins; sharp, dangerous. “You want to study folklore at a human university? You should see the library the Waltham pack has in Virginia.”

He goes because Deucalion says, “your little friends, the blonde and the black one, would you like them back? Not you personally, of course, but Derek, at least. He’s so alone. Omegas never survive.” He shrugs, carelessly. “I’m sure you don’t care about that, though.”

He goes because Deucalion says, “he’s never going to want you.” They’re fucking, then, Stiles facedown on the bed while Deucalion pushes into him, short, hard thrusts that leave him breathless, crying out. “You think he’ll ever want you, ever touch you after you’ve been on your back for me all year, taking it like a slut from every alpha you find?” He laughs, bites down hard on the nape of Stiles’ neck. Whispers in his ear, “you’re disgusting. He’d rather cut off his own hands than touch you” and Stiles cries as he comes. 

So Stiles drives off, in the passenger seat of Deucalion’s car, with the twins in the back seat. Kali drives her own car; she wrinkles her nose with distaste whenever the five of them are together, “too much testosterone.”

“She’ll be looking for a replacement soon,” Deucalion tells him one night, curved tight around Stiles’ back. He thinks of Cora’s glassy eyes, bled of all color after Derek had swiped his claws across her neck. He shudders hard.

They drive south, into the dry heat of Arizona, then east across Texas. Stiles visits forty eight states in five years; werewolves don’t do well on airplanes. He’d thought, at first, that he’d be—a pet, a novelty, someone that other packs wouldn’t look at twice. He’s completely, totally wrong as usual. The packs they encounter love him—the other alphas treat him reverently, as the chosen of an alpha. He has a seat of honor at every table in the country, he’s admitted to meetings, war councils. He thinks the spark must play a role—there’s no way some puny eighteen year-old receives this amount of respect without being—without having something special.

“You underestimate yourself,” Genevieve says, in New Orleans. “Humans like you come along once in a lifetime.”

The kids are the best part. Stiles begs off, half the time, despite Deucalion’s frown—he thinks it’s an insult, not to attend the meetings, likes being able to show off the prize he’s found. The other alphas seem to think it’s adorable—werewolf kids are drawn to Stiles like a magnet. He thinks it must be because he’s like a kid himself—still clumsy, gangly. He trips over stuff a lot and the kids absolutely howl with laughter. They like to roughhouse with him, carefully—every pack in America has at least one human in it, they all know the correct way to behave. He doesn’t know a goddamn thing about kids, but he sits and reads to them, sometimes, the way his mom did with him when he was little. The first time, it’s “Peter and the Wolf” and the one little girl sitting across from him on the living room floor multiples into four, ten, and the pack parents find them an hour later, everyone clustered around Stiles, eyes wide as he tells his own version of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Eyebrows raised, they all smirk a little as Stiles tells the children of a young man who fell in love with a wolf and how he saved him from the big, bad hunter.

Stiles calls his dad a few time, writes more often than anything because it’s easier not to have to answer uncomfortable questions about who he’s with and what he’s doing. He thinks someone must have filled his father in, after he left—there’s an undercurrent of worry in all their conversations.

He doesn’t speak to anyone else in Beacon Hills.

Deucalion runs hot and cold with Stiles, even though that’s a stupid way to think about it. He lacks the possessiveness of most of the werewolves they encounter—maybe it’s because the alpha pack is so nomadic, he never seems to mind leaving Stiles behind for a few weeks with various packs, before circling back around to pick him up so they can head to the next town. Aidan and Ethan get more upset at the sight of Stiles with other wolves, although they’re careful not to complain in front of Deucalion. Kali seems disappointed every time they return, to find Stiles alive. He doesn’t really blame her.  
***  
The end, when it comes, arrives with a whimper, not a bang. Stiles comes home from the grocery store, finds Deucalion on his knees in front of Kali. They’re both covered in blood, dust, soot— Stiles starts to run forward, sees Deucalion’s glassy eyes, stops. Remembers Kali, deep in conversation with the pack witch in Decatur, a solicitous hand on her back all throughout dinner. Thinks about Cora, poisoned a million years ago in Beacon Hills. Aidan and Ethan are watching from the entryway to the kitchen, the look on their faces telling Stiles that they still haven’t processed what’s happened.

Kali looks up, eyes red. “Little human,” she says. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Deucalion is swaying forward, like he would fall on his face if not for Kali’s claws, embedded in his chest. His heart.

Stiles walks forward, stops in front of Deucalion. Kali rises from her half-crouch, dragging Deucalion up with her. She offers Stiles the dagger in the left hand. “End it and go home,” she tells him. When he hesitates, she leans over to whisper in his ear. “Be free. Your real alpha is waiting.”

Stiles watches Deucalion fall to the ground, graceless like he never was in life. blood gushing from his throat, and thinks, dad would be so disappointed in me. He steps back before the blood on the floor reaches his sneakers. From the kitchen, one of the twins is keening, sound high in his throat. The witch steps forward from the living room, smiling. She brushes a thumb over his forehead and then blows in his eyes.

“I release you,” she says, and the next thing he knows, he’s in Deucalion’s car, driving away. He can only imagine what he’s left behind—the three kneeling to Kali, offering their necks and their obedience while Deucalion slowly exsanguinates in the background, already half-forgotten.

He doesn’t go back to Beacon Hills.

He drives across the country, a road trip in reverse. He doesn’t stop in any city or town he visited the first time. He’s murdered a werewolf—he’s broken the Code—he’s killed someone—and he expects the sound of sirens at any moment, welcomes it. He sleeps in shitty hotel rooms, wears a cap pulled low over his eyes when he’s out.

He heads west, a slow, circuitous route that takes unexpected stops. Whatever the witch did, he’s drawn to magic more strongly now than ever before. He meets other witches along the way, different magic users, people who understand more about the supernatural world than even the werewolves did. He spends a week or two in various towns, learns tricks meant to turn heads and those that are the real deal. People invite him to stay, to become a part of their groups or their covens, but Stiles always declines. He can’t explain it, but he understands following your instincts and something is pulling him back home.  
***  
Stiles comes back to Beacon Hills in the fall.

It’s been five years. The town looks the same, but it’s also different. There’s a Starbucks on Main Street and the movie theater on Pine has shut down. There’s magic in the air, magic that Stiles couldn’t smell five years ago; now, he can.

He leaves the Mustang outside the town limits, walks himself in. A few cars slow down, but Stiles waves them on. He drove out of town half a decade ago—was driven out. He needs to walk back in on his own two feet.

He goes home. No one is there. It looks a little worse for the wear, paint peeling, grass a little too long. The spare key is in the same spot, hidden under the shelf of the air conditioner. He lets himself in, walks around a little. It’s harder than he thought it would be, being home. The differences in here hurt worse than the ones outside did. He runs his hands across the countertops, couches, lets magic suffuse the house. He doesn’t go into his bedroom or his father’s.

He goes to Derek’s next. He wants to see Scott more, but Derek had still been the alpha when he’d left, clinging to the position by his teeth and his claws. He might be dead. Either way, he deserves to know.

The Camaro is parked on the street outside the loft. Stiles stops short at the sight of it, feels a pang in his chest. It’s beat up, paint job all fucked up in the rear, dent in the passenger side door. Stiles thinks of the Mustang, always in pristine condition, and wants to go back and smash it with a sledgehammer.

He goes upstairs, forces himself to keep his breathing steady, heart rate calm. Deucalion had loved to sneak up on him, pounce on Stiles from behind when he’d least expected it. He’d liked to sense the adrenaline rush, the hormones pumping through Stiles’ body as he’d startled, badly, every time. After that first year, the sophomore year from hell, Derek had never been interested in scaring Stiles, had gone out of his way to approach him from the front, never showing up in Stiles’ room without knocking on the window first or calling ahead.

Stiles knocks on the door. Erica answers.  
***  
Stiles had never been able to find out what happened to Erica and Boyd. He’d taken Deucalion’s word that they’d be released once the alpha pack left, because he’d had no other choice—he had no power, then. Ethan and Aiden didn’t know anything, didn’t ask questions. Kali knew one way or the other—she was Deucalion’s second. She’d known a lot more than she’d let on.

“Don’t worry,” Deucalion had said shortly, the one and only time Stiles had asked. He hadn’t been pleased with Stiles’ repeated questions, so he’d thrown him around a little that night, nothing too serious, a few open-handed slaps, a couple of punches. Sometimes Deucalion liked to make him bleed before they fucked. Stiles got used to it after a while.  
***  
Erica looks—good. Her hair is shorter, a little darker. Still made up, still beautiful. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Stiles? Is that really you?”

“Surprise,” Stile says, waving jazz hands at her. “I’m back.”

There’s a moment of shocked silence, Erica’s mouth moving but no words coming out. Then, she punches Stiles in the arm, hard. 

“Asshole,” she says. “You couldn’t have called?”

“Missed you too,” Stiles says easily. It’s true. “Can I come in?”

Erica rolls her eyes. “Maybe I should leave you outside as punishment for your stupidity,” she muses, but she steps aside to let Stiles pass.

The loft looks a lot nicer than he remembers, lived in, cozy. There are throws over the back of the couch, rugs on the floors, some framed artwork. With his view into the kitchen, Stiles can see what looks like a ridiculously expensive coffee maker.

“Looking good,” he says, meaning the place. Meaning Erica.

“You too,” she allows grudgingly, giving him a once over. “Never thought I’d see you home in one piece.”

“Why Erica, I didn’t know you cared,” he says, flippantly. A second later, she has him pinned against the front door.

“Don’t. Joke about that,” she growls. Stiles can feel her heart racing, too. “You have no idea—”

“Never thought to look for me, huh?” Stiles asks. “I did write to my dad, didn’t think I’d be that hard to track.”

“Derek wouldn’t let us go,” Erica says, and Stiles nods. He gets it. Acceptable civilian losses—of all the people to lose, Stiles was the least valuable, dead weight in a pack already drowning. He hadn’t even been good for research, that last year, nothing but a turncoat, Beacon Hills’ very own Benedict Arnold. If he were Derek and Derek Stiles—well. No question there.

“Deucalion swore he’d send you back, piece by piece, if we tried,” Erica says quietly. “He was— pretty convincing.”

Stiles wants to protest—that’s just stupid, Stiles had agreed to go, Deucalion hadn’t needed to—

“He knew what Derek would do to get you back,” she says. “We’ve been—still looking, trying to find something. Lost our best researcher a few years ago,” she adds with a rueful smile, “and he destroyed all his work before he left.”

Stiles is speechless.

“I don’t think he ever gave up hope that you’d come back,” Erica says. She sounds sad. “Neither did Scott or Lydia. But everything seemed like such a long shot—”

“Erica, where is he?” Stiles asks. He thinks he must sound frantic.

“Out at the Hale House,” she says quietly. “We rebuilt it.”

The new house is a vision. It’s bigger than the old and Stiles can tell just by looking that the whole floor plan has shifted, everything in a different place to keep the memories at bay and the ghosts away. It’s beautiful and Stiles aches, suddenly, for his five lost years. His six. All that time gone, all those missed days.  
***  
Over the last seven years, Stiles has touched—and has been touched by—so many people. Humans, werewolves. Alphas. The last time Derek touched him was the beginning of senior year. It was a week after he’d first—started things with Aiden and Ethan. He’d woken up one night, sleep restless and fitful, even a year after the kanima, Peter, Erica and Boyd. He’d opened his eyes and there was Derek, sitting on the edge of the bed. Stiles could only seen the broad expanse of his back, his head hanging down. He was still, quiet, and Stiles wanted to reach out, touch him, say, it’s going to be okay. Say, don’t worry. Not say anything, just pull Derek down onto the bed with him, kiss him, keep him there.

He closed his eyes instead, kept his breathing quiet and even. A minute or two passed and then he felt Derek’s hand brush over his hair, just once. When he opened his eyes again, Derek was gone.  
***  
Derek opens the door.

He’s quick to school his expression, but not quick enough. Stiles sees disbelief, shock, fear. A little anger. Stiles has been a cop’s kid his whole life and Derek has never been able to hide from him.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asks. His voice is higher than Stiles remembers.

“I’m back,” Stiles says simply. 

Derek is gripping the doorframe hard enough to make the wood creak. “Where’s your pack?” he demands.

Stiles shrugs. “Don’t have one anymore.” Can I be part of yours again, he doesn’t ask.

“Yeah, right,” Derek says bitterly. “Are they waiting around the corner for an ambush, or am I going to be attacked as soon as you leave?”

“I’m not leaving,” Stiles says. “I mean, eventually I’m going to leave your porch, because I don’t want my own dad to arrest me for loitering, but I’m back in Beacon Hills.” He takes a deep breath. “Deucalion is dead.”

The wood under Derek’s hand cracks. “What happened?”

“Kali,” Stiles replies. Me, he thinks. “I don’t know if she was planning it the whole time, but she’s in charge now. I thought you should know.”

“So you came back to warn me?” Derek sneers, or tries to. One side of his mouth is trembling a little.

“Hey,” Stiles says. “Look.” He holds up his hands—surrender. “I came back to let you know what’s happening. Kali isn’t coming back here, she hates this town and thinks the—your pack is useless. I’m—sticking around for a while, I guess.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Don’t know what my options are anymore.”

“Okay,” Derek says. “Sure. Is that all?”

“Yup,” Stiles says. “I’ll see you around.” He turns to leave before the door can slam in his face.  
***  
Erica figures it out first.

“What did he promise you?” she asks one night. Boyd is out with Isaac and Scott and the two of them are tangled up in bed, watching Seinfeld reruns on her ridiculous flat screen.

“Who?” Stiles asks, playing dumb.

Erica shoves him off the bed. “Deucalion, stupid. What did he trade you?”

“Who says I didn’t go because I wanted to?” Stiles says from the floor. Erica’s face appears in his field of vision, hanging over the side of the bed. Her faces softens at whatever she sees.

“I’m not saying you didn’t want to go, travel the world, whatever. But I know he blackmailed you with something, to get you to agree. I want to know what it was.”

“Maybe the sex was just that good, how about that.”

“Maybe,” Erica agrees affably. “Or maybe he said he would let Boyd and I go. How about that?”

Stiles looks at the ceiling. Swallows hard. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

There’s silence. When Stiles chances a look at Erica, she’s staring off to the side, unseeing. “Okay,” she says. She offers him a hand, uses her strength to drag him back onto the bed. She throws an arm around him and pulls him close. “All right.”  
***  
The doorbell rings in the middle of the night. 

Stiles answers it, half naked and unafraid. “I’m not going to apologize,” he says. He’s still mostly asleep. Derek looks surprised at the sight of him, clad only in pajama pants. He runs a hand through his hair, realizes it must look like a bird’s nest.

“What?”

“I’m not going to apologize,” Stiles repeats, “if that’s what you came here for. I left and I came back, and I know you don’t like it, but it was my life. Mine. And I got to make the choices, even if they were shitty ones, okay?” Derek doesn’t say anything. Stiles is quieter now than he was, he knows that, but being in front of Derek again makes him want to talk, to fill the space between them with words to keep the uncomfortable silence away. 

“Why did you go?” Derek asks, and it sounds like the question is being wrenched out of him. “Did you hate us so much—”

“What—no. Is that—is that what you’ve been thinking all this time?” Stiles says, amazed. Those last few months—that last year—Derek had gone out of his way to avoid Stiles. It had been funny at first, then petty, and finally Stiles had been so fucking pissed that if Derek had been unlucky enough to cross his path, he would have ripped him apart. 

Everything had been falling apart around him and with the alphas, it had been—easy. No one had wanted anything from Stiles except his body and instead of struggling to keep a pack together— of being the middle ground between Derek and Scott, of keeping Isaac tethered instead letting him float free, of bartering everything he had to keep Jackson and Lydia a part of the proceedings—he could just lie back and think of Beacon Hills. His dad was safe—that was part of the agreement from the start—and he hadn’t been lying to Derek, the alphas weren’t interested in the pack, except as a potential complication. 

He’d been mad at Derek, but it wasn’t anything personal. He didn’t think it was possible to hate Derek. How could anyone, after they’d seen Derek fall asleep on his couch, neck twisted at an awful angle, feet bare, so tired from chasing the alphas around that he couldn’t stay awake. He’d been a mystery at first, the hot, older werewolf full of secrets, never showing his hand, but the longer Stiles had spent around Derek, the more he’d seen. Derek was a mess, but so was Stiles, and Derek was a mess who would take one look at Stiles, jittery, hopped up on more Adderall than was safe, and force him to come inside, sit down and have a grilled cheese before they even started talking research. Derek knew all the words to Mean Girls, because it had been Laura’s favorite movie, and he finally, finally, admitted to Stiles one day that he always thought, “get in, loser, we’re going hunting,” whenever he pulled up in front of school with the Camaro. 

“I never hated you,” Stiles says, as gently as he can manage, because Derek looks like he could break apart with one wrong word. “I had to be on my own for a while. Live my life, make my mistakes. You know?”

“No,” Derek says. “We thought—we all thought—”

“I wrote my dad,” he says quickly. “So you would know I was okay, you didn’t have to worry.”

Derek scoffs, this incredulous noise in the back of throat. “Not worry? You left with that—lunatic—”

“He never hurt me,” Stiles says. “That wasn’t—he didn’t do anything that I didn’t want, Derek.”

Derek’s whole face twists at that, like he’s in pain, like Stiles is hurting him. “How could you—”

“It was what I wanted, Derek,” he says tiredly. “I know that you don’t get that, but I was. I was eighteen and I wanted to have sex, get off with something besides my right hand. I needed it. And I had to go, because I needed to know who I was, outside of this town.”

“You were pack,” Derek replies. “Wasn’t that enough?”

“No,” Stiles says. “Sorry, but that’s the truth.” He smiles, a little. “Had to walk through the fire to come out the other side.”

Derek only stares at him.

“I had to figure out who I was, before I could come back,” Stiles says, trying again. He doesn’t know why it’s so important for Derek to understand this, but somehow, it is. “I wouldn’t have been able to be happy here otherwise.”

“You had to leave to know what you had,” Derek tries. It’s not exactly right, but it’s close enough.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees.

“And now—you know?”

“I think so,” Stiles says. “I wanted to come home, I missed—this.”

Derek swallows once, twice. Nods a little before he starts to walk away. Stiles watches him go for a second, until Derek stops and turns back.

“Erica said—” and Stiles’ heart sinks for a second. “She said she’d kick my ass if I didn’t—say what I came here to say and I know you haven’t seen her fight, lately, but she’s—she’s pretty tough.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, waiting.

Derek swallows again. Stiles can’t remember ever seeing him this nervous. “I missed you,” he says finally, sounding like it’s torture to admit it. “When you left, I was pretty—fucked up for a while. Deucalion said—” here, he pauses, “he told us not to come after you, but we were still—looking, all this time.” There’s a longer pause. Stiles doesn’t interrupt it. “I’m glad you’re back,” Derek says, finally.

“Thank you,” Stiles says, and he means it. “I’m happy to be back. You’ll let me know if I’m—overstepping here, right?”

“Right,” Derek agrees. He starts to walk away again, but stops short. “You should—come to pack dinner, sometime. If you want.” He’s aiming for casual and missing by a mile.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Sure thing.”  
***  
Deucalion finds him in the graveyard.

It’s Thanksgiving and Stiles is so—he doesn’t know what. He’d thought being at the cemetery might help, might calm him down and let him figure out the clusterfuck that is his life right now, but it’s not working. Nothing is working, and he’s holding a pack of cigarettes that he’d filched from a deputy’s desk earlier and seriously contemplating lighting one, because he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing anymore. If he ever did. 

“Hello,” Deucalion says from behind and Stiles jumps about a foot in the air.

“Jesus Christ, warn a guy,” he says, trying to force his heartbeat back to normal.

Deucalion smirks at him. “Those things will kill you, you know.”

“Not any faster than everything else in this town,” he snaps back. Deucalion—knows about Stiles and the rest of the pack, he must. Stiles is at the house every day, he probably still smells like sex. The last round had only been an hour ago.

“I don’t think that’s exactly true,” Deucalion says smoothly. “You’re under the protection of two different packs right now, that’s a very—enviable position to be in.”

“I didn’t know fucking someone meant you were protected all of a sudden,” Stiles says.

“Well.” Deucalion says. “It doesn’t, per se.” He smiles and Stiles is struck, suddenly, by how handsome he is. It’s a different look than Derek, who’s all contrast: dark hair, light eyes; dark stubble, pale skin. Deucalion is tan, hair dirty blond, and his eyes are either blue or green, Stiles can’t quite make them out. He’s stupidly good-looking, which is just par for the course when it comes to Beacon Hills.

“Explain yourself,” Stiles says. He’s so, so sick of all the lying and omissions and misdirection in his life. For once, he wants a clean-cut, straightforward explanation for something, instead of having to wade through a mountain of crap to find the truth.

“I have a proposition for you,” Deucalion begins. “It’s one I think you’ll enjoy hearing.”

“Let’s hear it,” Stiles says, and Deucalion’s answering smile is wolfish.  
***  
The start, when it arrives, comes not with a whimper, but a bang. They’re facing off against hunters, an ex-military commando type unit, and Stiles is there, even though he’s not pack anymore. He’s there because he and Scott were at In-and-Out, buying a case of sliders when the hunters arrived, and now they’re pinned down out back by the dumpsters, being shot at with god knows what kind of ammunition, all because Scott had the munchies. The supernatural bullshit in this town never gets old. 

“Hi,” Stiles says. He’s on the ground, pinned flat by Derek’s body, a solid weight over his. Derek hasn’t lost any bulk over the years; he covers Stiles completely, hands flat on the ground and bracketing Stiles’ head.

“Hey,” Derek says. “Are you alright?”

“Except for the probable concussion, yeah. Totally,” Stiles says.

In front of them, the distraction promised by Isaac finally materializes: a chemical explosion that sends shit flying sky-high, hazardous materials and waste still aflame as they rain down on the pavement. It looks almost like fireworks, framing Derek’s face prettily. He’s staring at Stiles intently, eyes moving back and forth across his face. Stiles would almost say hungrily, except that’s such a cliché. 

“Good,” Derek says, before he leans down and kisses Stiles. It’s hard and passionate; it’s six years’ worth of loss and frustration and longing poured into three minutes of Derek mapping Stiles’ mouth with his own, nipping at his lower lip; sucking on his tongue while Stiles reaches up to slide his hands down Derek’s broad shoulders and around his narrow waist and yank him closer.

They break apart and Derek rests his forehead on Stiles’ chest, breathes heavily against his collarbone. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do that.”

“I kind of figured,” Stiles says, moving his hands in reverse to card through Derek’s hair gently. They lie there for a while, just breathing together, the sounds of the pack rounding up the rest of the hunters far off and muted. 

“Don’t go anywhere else, okay?” Derek says after long minutes. He’s still wrapped around Stiles’ body, protective, keeping him safe.

Stiles thinks of the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone. There was a detour to the Keys one summer, the heat muggy and oppressive as Stiles sat on a dock with the twins, drinking cheap beer and watching the water. They stopped at Niagara Falls and Deucalion had swept Kali off her feet, carried her into the suite over her protests. “This may be the only honeymoon we ever have, darling,” he’d told her. Stiles sent his dad a picture of the Bellagio, Stiles in front of the fountain giving the camera a thumbs up; he wrote, “Ted Nugent called, he wants his shirt back” on the other side of it.

Stiles thinks of all the magic he learned while he was away, the things he knows how to do now, to keep himself safe. To keep all of them safe. He has an invitation to return to any pack in the country, at any time; a few had contacted him on his way back to Beacon Hills, to let him know that killing Deucalion hadn’t earned him some sort of—black mark, a permanent record in the supernatural world. He could go anywhere, do anything; he didn’t know that about himself five years ago, but he knows it now.

“Okay,” he says, one hand slipping back to Derek’s waist to pull him close. “I’ll stay.”


End file.
